10.6.4 slowed my boot time. Thoughts?

Hey guys.

I've noticed that since my install of the new OSX update, my boot times have gone up. It's gone from approximately 1 turn of the spinning wheel (at the screen with the Apple logo) or about 1 second after the Apple logo appears, to about 9 turns of that same spinning wheel, or around 8 extra seconds, give or take.

All applications respond just as they always did, with no change. The only thing that has changed is the boot speed, and the only change to my computer is said OS update (and an iTunes update).

What I've already done:

• Repaired disk permissions
• Booted into Safe Mode
• reset the PRAM
• Ran ONYX and deleted Boot Cache, Kernel Cache, International Preferences Cache, CUPS Jobs Cache, Directory Services Cache, Rebuilt LaunchServices. Cleaned System Cache and User Cache
• Rebooted several times
• Shut down several times
• Did a standard cleaning with CleanMyMac
• Checked my startup applications and verified nothing but iTunes Helper starting with the system

I can't really think of anything else. I did make a Time Machine backup before doing the update, so I do have that as a backup plan, if in the end we decide that's the best way to address this. I'll lost nothing but the time required to restore a Time Machine backup.

If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, or recommendations, I'd love to hear them. No, it's not a big deal...it's only 7 or 8 seconds and my apps all work just as fast as ever. But it doesn't seem like this should happen.

Also, I'd like to know if anyone else has noticed this, or if I'm just special. I googled it and found several others experiencing this, but real solutions offered. I know, however, that the Mac professionals here are better than most.

Any insight will be appreciated as always.

 

I don't know what it is, but it seems like every time there is a update people complain that there boot times have increased.

 

Well I'll be.

I disabled iTunes Helper and voilia: boot times back to normal.

I did it just to be trying something...after reading that leaving Apple startup items checked was safe, I allowed iTunes Helper to remain as my only startup application.

Apparently, Apple software is not always as safe as it is assumed on Apple Support websites.

So perhaps this page will be helpful for others having this kind of issue and may stumble upon our happy website in their search for help. Disable everything that starts up with your computer:

System Preferences --> Accounts -->Login Items

including Apple's iTunes Helper. See if your startup speed increases. Then re-enable the things you want and see if the startup times stay low. I even re-enabled iTunes helper and the start times seem about the same.

If I find that they've gone back up, I'll once again disable iTunes Helper. If I disable iTunes helper and the start times remain high, I'll report back. But for now, I consider my problem solved. I'll certainly keep an eye on it, though. If anything changes, NBR will know.

 

How much longer did your boot take?

 

Strange, I noticed the same when I updated to 10.6.4 as well - my boot time also increased by around 6-7 secs.

However, after a couple of reboots everything has kicked in back to normal again though. I didnt remove anything from startup etc.

I havent updated iTunes - well I dont think I have seperately anyways. Is it rolled into the 10.6.4 update??
When I did the 10.6.4 update, it was around 600MB or so, which I thought was strange. Maybe the iTunes update was rolled into it??
I'll check my iTunes when I get home, and will also disable the helper as that doesnt need to run at startup either way!

EDIT: Seems iTunes update is seperate. Will do that tonight and get back to you with any changes......

 

disabling iTunes Helper dropped my boot time by about 7 seconds.

your mileage may vary. certainly something easy to try. just count the number of rotations the spinning boot indicator below the Apple logo does before it boots up. then after it boots, disable iTunes Helper in the System Preferences -->Accounts-->Login Items and restart. see how many less rotations the boot indicator takes.

Before I disabled: 8-10 spins

After I disabled: 1-2 spins

but again, it may affect your system less (or more). I'm booting off SSD, so my boot times are short in general. Still, the amount of time saved is quite noticeable.

 

I did the upgrade and didn't notice any problem. In fact, things seem to be a little quicker than before. Oh well, there's always one in every crowd, right??

 

Interesting, I will play around with this later, since I haven't installed itunes update yet.

 

yea. or more than one.

 

iTunes helper didnt make any difference to me.

Although my boot time has increased a little. Don't know why. It did the same after the 10.6.4 update as well, and after a few restarts it fixed itself. Hoping the same will happen again! lol

 

Yup - as I thought - its just sped up again!!!
Im happy again now! lol

This is what Ive noticed with my SSD...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/apple-mac-os-x/492604-ssd-speed-after-updates.html

 

What's the advantage to updating anyways? I read the changelog but is there anything worth it to you? Is speed better or just back to normal?

On 10.6.3 and using 80GB X25-M

 

Speed is back to normal for me.
I guess you need the iTunes update if you want us iOS4 (if you own an iPhone). Otherwise the 10.6.4 update I done for the hell of it! Lol

 

I received my Intel X-25 G2 160GB today and re-installed Snow Leopard then updated to 10.6.4 and experienced very slow boot times for an SSD. I rebooted about 7-8 times and downloaded iTunes 9.2 again and reset my pram and repaired the file permissions and still got slow boot times. Then I shut down and it was fine back to extremely fast boot times. Don't know why it does this. Glad it's not a permanent problem.

 

Ive read it may have something to do with Spotlight after an update. Spotlight goes crazy re-indexing everything to make searches fast, which is why things may appear slow for a little while then speed up?

 

I just don't understand that. Spotlight shouldn't affect boot times. I can understand if it slowed down the computer because it was running in the background but should not be affected by boot time. Wonder why it takes nearly a dozen reboots to fix?

 

Yeh that's true actually.
Only other explanation I can think of is the drive takes a bit of time to reorganise itself or something?